Sorrow, Love, Rise, 2016
Cotton, linen, silk, photo copied paper and cotton thread. Each panel 24” x 36″
Sorrow: Mother and child
Holding your child, the center of your world, now breathless, killed during a raid of your home. Seven years old. Never to share a smile with you again. Her cheek fit so perfectly in the palm of your hand, the sounds of her laughter fading from your memory….
Aiyana Stanley-Jones, seven years old, joins America’s long history of lives lost to a “justice” system that disregards the humanity of Native Americans, African-Americans, Latin@-Americans, and Asian-Americans. The “accidental” killing of children by the police, empowered by the State, are dismissed as “collateral” damage In a country that has yet to confront its white supremacist roots. And the SWAT raid of a home littered with children’s toys in the front yard is material for TV entertainment.
Was there really no other way to restore justice? Was another lynching really necessary?
In hopes that her life was not lost in vain, this panel is made for the memory of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 7, fatally shot in the head by the police while asleep on the couch next to her grandmother.
Love: Ernest Johnson, “Put on your LOVE glasses!”
Inspired by a story told by Ernest Johnson, a family member and organizer with Justice for Families. To a room of hundreds of juvenile justice professionals:
Before I share the story of my son, I would ask that you all to put on your LOVE glasses.
What would justice look like if we all put on our love glasses? We might remember that each and every person in our communities, in our schools, in our justice system, is someone that someone loves…
What I really miss is sitting on the couch watching football with my son.
In hopes that their lives have not been locked up or lost in vein, from left to right, children killed by the police:
Michael Brown, 18, shot six times and fatally shot by Ferguson, MO police. He was unarmed.
Laquan MacDonald, 17, shot 16 times by Chicago, IL police, falling to the ground after the first shot. He was armed with a 3 inch knife.
Trayvon Martin, 17, shot and killed by Sanford, FL self appointed vigilante while walking home after going to corner store to buy candy, the vigilante faced no consequences. He was unarmed.
Tamir Rice, 12, shot and killed by Cleveland, OH police while playing on a park swing with a plastic toy gun. He was “armed” with a toy.
Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 7, fatally shot in the head by the Detroit, MI police while asleep on the couch next to her grandmother. She was unarmed.
Cameron Tillman, 14, shot four times and killed by Houma, LA police while playing after school in a neighborhood shack used as a club house. He may have been “armed” with a toy gun.
Andy Lopez, 13, shot 6 times and killed by the Santa Rosa, CA police while carrying replica toy gun. He was “armed” with a toy.
To date, none of the officers or police departments involved in the deaths of the children listed above have had to face any consequences for their actions. The vigilante was released shortly after questioning based on his own claim of “self-defense”.
Rise: As the river rises, so, too, we.
Just as the Mississippi River has witnessed generations of attempts to suppress and obscure the humanity of the people who live and work along her banks and tributaries, she, too, has witnessed her people rising with every generation, shining their light, through love, art, music, and resistance. . . .
Just as the Mississippi River rises, demanding, asserting, claiming rightful belonging inside the circle of human concern, sometimes slow and meandering, sometimes surging and fast, always persistent and insistent, we, too, rise. . . .
Rise!
Preparatory sketches and paper collages for the final fabric collage of Sorrow, Love, Rise!
The central image for “Rise” was inspired by a photo of the Grand Marshall Oswald Jones found online in the Borneo Bulletin. The first collage is composed of photocopied images and pencil. While working on the collage, I realized that people were not so much “Left.” as determined: “And We Rise”, which eventually became the clear call: “Rise”.
Graphite on trace, “I don’t want to be next”, 2015